Are F1 cars that hard to drive after all?

[Super Tourer]

I think the real revelation of 2000 is that some GP drivers have been 'found out' and that F1 is not as hard as some would like to make out.

Button has done a superb job this year jumping straight to F1 from F3, which many thought could not be done (I Know it used to happen, both Brundle and Hakkinen and Senna did the same)

Kimi Rakkinnon (?) jumped straight out of a Formula Renault car into the Sauber and was immediately fast.

Mark Webber tested for Bennetton and was 1/2 a second quicker than Fissi.

Pizzonia has been quick in Bennetton tests.

Of the established names, I think Trulli was poor, got caught up in too many silly incidents. Did Fissi take part in the last 3 races at all? And Ralfie got rattled once JB started to be quicker than him and started throwing it off the road.

Irv was very patchy at best. With so many up and coming 'kids' on the fringes of F1 and JB having proved that they are not such a big gamble after all, I believe that 2001 could be a make or break year for a lot of F1 drivers, who have to raise their game considerably.

[angst]

Does Mark Webber have any history in karts at all? I'm just wondering if the driving style of F1 is so similar to karts now that the youngsters who have recent experience find it easy to adapt, whereas those with more car experience aren't quite on the ball. Just a thought, might be completely wide of the mark.

[Airhead]

Angst,

Mark Webber has a strong history in lower open wheel formulas. Not sure about carts previous to this.

[Jay]

Well, it is a lot easier to turn 1 fast lap when you have an entire afternoon to it, as many of the test drivers do. It is much harder when you only get 4 tries, and there are several other cars qualifying at the same time.

[Airhead]

Yes I agree when we are talking about a normal pre race qualifying session. In testing all the drivers present do as many laps as possible. And the number of tyres in testing, (to my knowledge), are not an issue. If you read the testing summaries the drivers do 40 to 60 laps over the day.

Performance during a race depends on variables other than speed, ie. race craft, pit strategies concentration over up to 2 hours straight. Here in lies the difference.